


Day Five: Charlie & Sam

by claryherondale



Category: The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), The Perks of Being a Wallflower - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/M, Fluff, Letters, Mental Health Issues, No Smut, Recovery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 20:30:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8768191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claryherondale/pseuds/claryherondale
Summary: Day 5 of My 31 Favorite ShipsCharlie writes a letter to make sure the recipient of all of his previous ones knows that he has been doing much better since sophomore year started.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just fluff with the implication that some smutty stuff that we don't get to know about happens. After reading TPOBAW about four years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie when it came out. I thought it was only right to honor Stephen Chbosky by adding Charlie & Sam to my list of favorite ships, considering the profound and beautiful work he put forth. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Dear Friend,

It has been awhile since I sent my last letter, but I wanted to make sure you know that things got better for me after sophomore year started. I got through it with, well, adequate grades, and I saw Sam and Patrick almost every other weekend. They’re loving life. And I am, too.

Throughout the year, I got plenty of book recommendations from Mr. Anderson—remember, my freshman English teacher? He doesn’t pity me, even though he knows what happened and he even visited me while I was hospitalized. Most people, if they find out, feel sorry for me and treat me differently. That’s just the way life works, at least in high school. 

It’s summer break now, and Sam and Patrick are both home for almost three months. I spend most of my time with them. I go see a therapist once a week as well though, and my family attends counseling that helps them deal with what happened to me. Most of the time, things aren’t too bad, because I’m working on it, now that I’ve remembered what my aunt did to me. It has taken a lot of processing to even be able to handle thinking about it, but no one pressures me to talk about it when I don’t want to. 

But still, every once in a while there’s a little error in time, where things get fuzzy and dark, like the screen on one of our old TVs. And then I see, through a blurry film, moments stranded in the mass continuum of time: watching my sister get hit by her boyfriend, when my mother told me how sorry she was when she found out about what happened to me, seeing the scars on Aunt Helen’s wrist, later trying to imitate what she had done to get them, and other things like that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy. And not happy and sad at the same time, but just happy. A lot of it has to do with the therapy. Not all of it, though. Some of it, a good bit of it, has to do with Sam. 

What can I tell you about Sam that I haven’t already? Everything about her draws me to her. She was—and is—my first love. And even though I messed things up with her more than once, she loves me too. A month after I was hospitalized, she came to see me without Patrick. 

It was late, so we went up to my room, and she told me things that she and I had said before, the most notable being, “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

That always stuck with me. Mr. Anderson had said that to me when I had talked to him about my sister's boyfriend hitting her, which maybe you remember and maybe you don't. But Sam reiterated it to me then. She wanted to know what love I thought I deserved. I was honest with her, because I couldn’t imagine lying to her face, so soft and trusting in the dim light of my room. I looked back at my typewriter, the one she had gifted me on Christmas, and thought about pressing the buttons to write out what I wanted to say, because that would be so much easier.

“I don’t know,” I told her eventually.

“Charlie,” Sam whispered, “I think you do know, but you’re not admitting it to yourself, because it’s scary. It’s scary for me, too. But do you want to know what love I think I deserve, after all of the mistakes that I’ve made and all of the people who have gone behind my back and betrayed me?”

“Yes,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest.

“I think I deserve your love. That’s the love I would accept.” 

“Sam, you know how I feel about you,” I reminded her weakly. “I’m just not sure that I deserve you, or that you should accept the love that I could give as . . . well, as a broken person.”

“Welcome to the island of misfit toys,” she murmured, the echo of a memory. “You’re no more broken than any of the rest of us.” She paused, and as she thought of what she knew had been done to me, asked, “Can I kiss you?”

My heart stuttered a bit in my chest, but I was able to say what I wanted: “Yes.”

She kissed me then, and her lips were gentle but they held their own form against mine. Sam slept over that night, but it didn’t scare me or trigger any flashbacks this time. I had worked on myself and on getting closure from the past enough that I was able to separate the two experiences. Sam and I have been together since that night, and I accept the love she gives me, as I know now that I deserve it.

Patrick spends a lot of time teasing us about it, but it’s all in good jest. He loves his sister, and he loves me, too. I am so grateful to him for rescuing me from my seclusion during my freshman year. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had my friends. 

I am not looking forward to my junior year starting, because that means Sam and Patrick will have to go back to their college campuses, but I also know that it will lead me one step closer to graduation. 

Sam knows me better than anyone—except maybe you. I’m ready for the rest of my life with her, now that everything is finally good.

Love always,  
Charlie

P.S. When we had to do a bit of creative writing for English class this past year, I took a shot at "Slut and the Falcon". My teacher was not impressed. I can’t help but to think Mr. Anderson would have been.

**Author's Note:**

> Hint for tomorrow's ship:  
> The actress who plays the female counterpart  
> in the movie adaptations very recently had a baby.


End file.
